Analyst: Unemployment at record levels
Chief Economist at Econometrix Dr Azaar Jammine says the unemployment rate is the highest ever recorded.
Releasing the latest stats yesterday, Statistics South Africa said the unemployment rate of 27.7% is the highest since 2003.
But Jammine disputes this, saying it has never been this high.
According to Stats SA almost half a million people in South Africa were looking for jobs in the first quarter (Q1) of 2017.
"One had expected an increase in Q1 due to temporary jobs that were created in the agricultural, retail and the tourism sectors. We knew there would be layoffs of at the beginning of the year.
"The economy still managed to create a 144 000 new jobs in the first quarter, that is a reflection to some extent of the modest improvement of our economic growth rate," says Jammine.
At the same time last year, the unemployment rate stood at 26.7%.